Evolving language

I was just thinking about language, the current trend for people to use apostrophe's to make plural's, and the nature of the study of physics.

I've been quite annoyed about the apostrophe problem, because I'm a bit of a grammar purist; I'm not entirely alone, either. I mean, I know language changes, and languages that cease to change are probably dead. But the apostrophe thing irritates me because it introduces yet another complication into English that just seems entirely unnecessary. And it's not like it makes it easier; you have to type an extra character to get it wrong.

Non-English speaker: So I add "s" to make plural.
English speaker: Yes.
Non-English speaker: And I use " 's " to make possessive.
English speaker: Yes.
Non-English speaker: But apostrophes also indicate contractions.
English speaker: Yes, you're really getting the hang of this.
Non-English speaker: And I use "s" on the end of a verb to make a form of the present tense.
English speaker: Yes, like in "he sees the dog." Very good.
Non-English speaker: So what's this I see on signs: "Dog's for sale" Does this mean "Dog is for sale" or "Dog owns for sale"?
English speaker: Well, some people use the apostrophe to indicate plural.
Non-English speaker: So the apostrophe now has three meanings, and which one it is can only be deduced from context.
English speaker: Yes.
Non-English speaker: So what about this. I saw this in a chat room: "He really need's to figure it out."
English speaker: Well, I guess there are four meanings. That's just a use that indicates that type of present tense.
Non-English speaker: So you have two ways to indicate plural and that form of present tense, and they look identical to possessive and contraction, and require a context check to figure out.
English speaker: Yes.

Wow. What a mess we've made of the " 's ." It's so pervasive, that I find myself typing it. But I'm picky, so I backspace and fix it. But I don't expect people who aren't that picky to spend the time to do that, so it's changing in the language. The purists rail, and the... relaxists say, "an unchanging language is dead. Just let it go."

Yesterday, it occurred to me while riding the Orange line Metro to work, that at some point, language must not have evolved far enough to have the words "grammar" or "verb." This struck me as being similar to life before evolving conscious thought. The language was probably complex, and able to communicate many things, but not describe itself. Before evolving the structures to describe its own structures, it still had structures. :)

So I'd say that the tools we use to describe language are, in a sense, separate from the language itself. They are only a means to describe how the language functions. Hence grammar rules don't define the language, they describe it. This is how physics works. The physical world does not "obey the laws of physics"; it is described by them. Sometimes physicists find that their "laws" are incorrect, and need to be adjusted. I would say that the "laws of grammar" must be the same.

The difference is that the ways in which the physical world behaves aren't actually changing with time. So we can just toss old physics "laws" and get new ones based on new observations. There's no one to blame, and it's not even a change in the world. Physicists just had it wrong before, and are making "progress" toward a better understanding of the universe.

What makes changes in language annoying is that language is something we've made ourselves. We should be able to make language adhere to the rules. So the final question is: Do we decide to bend language to our will, and force it to adhere to the rules we want? Or do we let it evolve, and continue to revise our description of the system by changing the "rules" of grammar?

Well, it looks like the German speaking peoples of the world are taking the first tack. In 1996, the German-speaking nations of the world (except Luxembourg) ratified a spelling reform to simplify their language. As I tend to be a purist, I applaud them. But I must say, in light of the preceding discussion, I no longer feel it is inherently wrong to just let language change and update the rule's accordingly.